


Standard Late Night Procedure

by orphan_account



Series: pressure points [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Pillow Talk, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-09
Updated: 2014-04-09
Packaged: 2018-01-18 19:16:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1439761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You've missed the point by a mile, Mycroft," Sherlock says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Standard Late Night Procedure

"I suppose there's no point in asking you to stop fidgeting, Sherlock", Mycroft sighs into the ambient darkness. He feels around for his mobile, squints at the glaring screen. 2 A.M.

Sherlock's briefly still, and the sheets take up their rustling again as he winds close, pressing into skin like he's trying to infect Mycroft with his insomnia through bodily contact. It's working. Mycroft's eyes adjust gradually to faint, silvery lines. Sherlock curls an arm around his midsection, speaks into his ear in clicking teeth and growls, as though he might devour his brother.

"You've been spying and plotting again. It's _infuriating_."

His brother likes needles, so Mycroft needles his brother.

"I've been sleeping, actually. Until you took up kicking at my sheets for attention. Childish, Sherlock."

"Shut up."

"And rude. Go put on some clothes."

Sherlock is twitching with lucent irritation, Mycroft no more the perpetrator than another nicotine craving, although he's been burning rapidly through Mycroft's stash, mouth twisting with distaste all the while. The smoke clings to the walls and to the carpets and to the furniture – crumbling paper and low tar, and maybe they're the reason Mycroft feels as though he can't breathe all the time.  

No. Mycroft can't breathe all the time because Sherlock rockets around, sharp limbs and sharp tongue shooting dangerously, and he burns through nicotine like it's propellant. And even when he isn't burning something, he might as well be -- flashing around Mycroft's office like an electrical storm, turning over files and digging through the feed, late into the night. The hallways can't contain him, although he's meant to be resting. In his injury, Sherlock takes up more oxygen than usual; Mycroft is left gasping at carcinogens.

And Sherlock twitches behind him as he talks.

" _Spying_ on people. That's what's rude, Mycroft. Climbing into your lover's bed in the nude is standard procedure."

As though spying isn't. " _Lover_ , Sherlock?" Mycroft feigns exaggerated surprise. "Although, I concur; it _is_ in better taste than archenemy. Certain dramatic zing to it."

"Shut it, Mycroft. Stop speaking."

"Brothers and lovers. Of course you'd like that better, wouldn't you? Certainly better than brothers and archenemies. Come to think of it, archenemy  _is_ rather pedestrian –"

" _Mycroft_."

"- And you do so love to be dramatic. Tell me, Sherlock, since you didn't mean to imply rudeness, apparently, is this your idea of a proposition?"

Sherlock hisses, a snake seething venom, and Mycroft can tell he's baring his teeth by the way his fingers dig, like he's trying to tear Mycroft open. Mycroft lets him dig – it gets the blood flowing, and he's still warm and indolent with sleep.

Sherlock is sharp nails and scar tissue.

"Stop spying on John", he commands, forceful. The sting flares into a thudding on an area of Mycroft's hip, and Sherlock is pressing the pads of his fingers against it, as though he's trying to indent pain, deliver it across a larger part of Mycroft. 

"John's not the one I'm spying on."

"Don't be obtuse. You're spying on John by extension. Stop it."

"Or what?"

Sherlock shoves a knee between his thighs, skin between silk, fingers moving down to play at the drawstrings. 

"Or I'll make you, brother dear. I'll fucking make you."

Voiced pitched dark and low, he's utterly sincere. Mycroft dislodges fingers as he turns with burgeoning curiosity. Sherlock is streaked with shadows, and Mycroft just barely catches the way he re-aligns his face with vaguely defensive dignity.

Because he eschews sentiment, just like his big brother.

"John won't know", Mycroft says, and Sherlock rejects comfort in words with a tilt of his lips, brow scrunching in vexation. He makes to take back his arm, but Mycroft catches hold of his wrist, Sherlock's pulse against his thumb, peering into his shadow-streaked, scowling face.

"You've missed the point by a mile, Mycroft," Sherlock says. 

Mycroft misses nothing, but some deductions, Sherlock says, are so plain, plain as day, that Mycroft misses them. And it should be plain as day: the rift zone that is Sherlock's friendship with Doctor Watson. Mrs. Watson is tectonic movement, throwing chasms across the surface, and Sherlock is frightened. Wary that the ground might cave in completely. Fairly obvious.

"Tell me then. What's the point?"

"Stop spying on John Watson."

"What reason, Sherlock? Why?"

"I don't approve of it."

"Why, though? Why?"

Sherlock knocks their ankles together with a reflexive kicking motion he's always done that Mycroft finds thoroughly endearing. He's gritting his teeth, glaring daggers at Mycroft, and  Mycroft counts as his pulse jumps against his thumb -- one two, one two, one two. 

"Well?" Mycroft prods. Sherlock is greatly aggrieved. 

"Hours and hours of footage, Mycroft, and they're all useless. I realize you've got some absurd tastes, like _low tar,_ but this is beyond abhorrent", he says, a deluge of fast words. "Hours and hours of John Watson having a bloody _wank_ in the shower – that's disgusting Mycroft. Even for you." Sherlock pokes at his clavicle for good measure. 

And Mycroft did, as it turns out, miss the point by a mile. He wants to smile, and he doesn't because Sherlock's twitching. He dips down instead, catching Sherlock's lips, and kisses until Sherlock kisses back, albeit grudgingly.

"Your jealously is unwarranted for and absurd."

"Shut up", Sherlock says, and Mycroft humours him. Sherlock is flushed, embarrassed, so he insinuates even closer, winds arms around Mycroft's neck so he can kiss his brother, long and slow. Mycroft indulges in the smooth skin of Sherlock's sides under his palms.

"It is. I promise. Surveillance on Mary Watson is a matter of –"

Sherlock is laughing. "National importance?"

"National importance", he agrees, and Sherlock huffs against his mouth, pleased because his stuffy brother's being amusing for once, or so he'll say later. They breathe between kisses.

"She won't try anything."

"How would you know?"

"Because I'm going to fix it for her."

"You are not."

"And you're going to help, My. You're going to help me do it."

Oh hell. "I'm not."

Sherlock kisses him, long and slow.

"You are, like it or not."

Mycroft simultaneously longs to know, and doesn't ever want to discover whatever scheme Sherlock's concocted. He'll do what he always does: architect a safe house for Sherlock to run into after he baits the storm and it chases him, hot at his heels. 

Mycroft'll do what he always does: build, and try to keep breathing while his baby brother rockets about unheeding, taking up all the oxygen. Then he'll lie in wait, because damage control is his forte.

He only has to wait until Christmas.


End file.
